Desert Wolf

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  The Lycan was a hero, of sorts, Grant decided, and would be honored among the pack whether or not Andrew showed his face there.

  Giving in to emotion, Paxton put her arms around her father, burying her head against his broad chest.

  Grant watched this with a lump in his throat.

  Although her father did not immediately return his daughter’s gesture of comfort and reunion, there was no doubt in Grant’s mind that Andrew Hall wanted to, but had simply forgotten how.

  Chapter 33

  Sunlight slanted through an opening in the curtains. Long, thin fingers of yellow luminescence left stripes on the bed and on Grant’s lover’s naked body.

  She had talked in her sleep, as she had nearly every night since that dark one at the mine, tossing and turning until he quieted her with a kiss on the nape of her neck. That wonderfully tender place beneath her cascade of silky blond hair was the spot he had grown to love almost as much as the woman it belonged to.

  He had done this same thing every night for a month.

  Paxton had not mentioned going back to the East in the weeks that had passed, showing no desire to retrieve her things. She didn’t seem to care about anything except being one of the pack, strolling through Desperado and going out to meet her father each evening when he came as far as the edge of town.

  And, well, she also liked Grant Wade, and this.

  Gliding his palm over her taut belly made her stir. Slipping his fingers between her thighs made her growl in a sleepy way.

  Daylight had become Paxton’s friend. She rested easier after the sun came up, and who could blame her? Still, her body, in his bed, was warm and fragrant, and much too delectable for Grant to ignore his craving for her or the hardness of his erection.

  Yes, they knew each other. Absolutely. He understood that she’d make him work a little harder at seducing her before she let on that she’d been waiting for him to do so. His she-wolf was sometimes adept at hiding her thoughts, but never thoughts dealing with her feelings for him. Each morning, he made love to her. Each day she told him she loved him.

  The feeling was mutual.

  The place his fingers found nestled between her legs was soft and lightly furred. When he dared to insert the tip of one finger into the tender folds beneath all that softness, Paxton sighed and arched her back.

  “Wolf,” he whispered with his mouth close to her ear.

  “Bastard,” she responded teasingly, leaving her lush lips slightly open in invitation.

  It was always like this, Grant thought to himself. And always would be. Although they sometimes took an hour to satisfy their craving for each other, taking the time to explore each angle and curve, holding himself back was never easy. Paxton Hall was just too damn sexy. And she was his.

  Gently, he rolled over to lay his body against hers. His lover didn’t open her eyes. But she smiled and opened her legs.

  “What? Again?” Grant asked.

  Fair lashes fluttered before her eyes finally opened and she said in her best bedroom voice, “If you think an alpha can handle it.”

  It was his turn to smile. “I’m pretty sure I can, since you insist.”

  “Of course, if you’d rather not…” she began, the jest fading as he entered her with a smooth thrust that made her fingers curl.

  Her eyes never left him after that, and Grant wouldn’t have had it any other way. As their bodies rode out the storm that took them over with each renewed thrust, each give and take, plunge and withdrawal, Grant finally sealed his lips to hers. He drank in her groans of pleasure as if every sound were a special kind of sustenance for him.

  And when he reached her core, that place where their souls met and collided amid the pulsating inferno, his lover’s hard-beating orgasm spun him into his own divine ecstasy.

  It was like coming back to Earth after a journey in space when Grant’s mind could function properly again. He was a little out of breath and his lips were on Paxton’s. Her hands were on his bare backside, frozen there as she came down from the same kind of blissful journey.

  “Will that do, little wolf?” he whispered, drawing back far enough to seek the answer in her amber gaze.

  “Not quite, I’m sorry to say,” she huskily replied. “I expected far more from a Lycan.”

  So, what the hell? Grant thought, smiling widely, knowingly, happily. He was damn sure he was up for the next round, as well as the one after that…and was ready to prove it.

  He had a job to do, a pack to protect and a beautiful she-wolf in his bed. Maybe, just maybe, his mind had been changed, and being an alpha wasn’t turning out to be so bad after all.

  And, in the end, he had Desperado’s ghosts to thank for that.

  *

  Can’t get enough of DESERT WOLF?

  Check out Linda ThomasSundstrom’s

  previous werewolf books:

  WOLF BORN

  WOLF HUNTER

  SEDUCED BY THE MOON

  HALF WOLF

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  Read on for an excerpt from WITCH’S HUNGER by Deborah LeBlanc.

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  Witch’s Hunger

  by Deborah LeBlanc

  Prologue

  The triplets had known trouble since birth.

  Near the north wall of a vast cavern southeast of Marseilles stood a wide stone table. Behind the table sat the Council of Elders for the Circle of Sisters—Magda, head of the council, Bayonne and Palmae.

  Magda, shaking with fury, glared at the three young women standing before them. Esmee, the eldest of the triplets and most outspoken, and her sisters, Lisette and Julianne François. The girls’ shadows danced across the stone walls from the multitude of candles that illuminated the dank cave.

  They were forced to wear sackcloth and walk the many miles to the meeting area. They stood dirty, sweating and trembling with fear at what they were about to face. They were identical in appearance save for their eyes. Each held a unique color. Esmee’s were brilliant blue, Lisette’s a shiny copper and Julianne’s blacker than any shade of night.

  All three pairs of eyes were now downcast, the girls’ heads bowed in sorrow and submission. Coal-black hair fell across alabaster skin. The cave smelled of their sweat, burning candles and the earthy scent of the dirt beneath their feet.

  Magda, as head of the council, held the staff of judgment so tightly in her right hand her knuckles had turned white. Her fury was undeniable. The staff of judgment was eight inches long, made of thick, polished Elder-wood and topped with a bloodstone the size of a small woman’s fist.
The staff was the ballast used only in severe cases, of which this was definitely one.

  Being responsible for an entire clan of witches spread throughout France, especially in the fifteenth century, was no small feat. She held fast to being firm and fair, and unwavering from protocol. Despite her anger, looking at the triplets made her heart ache and cluttered her thoughts.

  This wasn’t the first time the sisters had stood before the council. Mostly for misdemeanors on other occasions. Their youth accounted for the majority of the dismissals of those cases.

  Magda knew the council granted special favors to the triplets out of pity. Years ago, their parents had left a theater late one evening when a band of thieves shot out from a dark alley and murdered both of them. The triplets had only been two years old at the time, and by vote, the Council of Elders decided that Bayonne would take responsibility for them. They’d had no other choice. It was part of their culture. Neither adoption nor abandonment existed in their code of ethics. The Circle of Sisters took care of their own.

  Magda always suspected Bayonne had been too lenient on the girls throughout the years, and today’s fiasco seemed to attest to that. At sixteen years old, with a full fourteen years under Bayonne’s tutelage, the young women should have known better.

  “But, Elders, we beg of you,” Esmee said. “Please consider reason. Would you not have done the same? Would you have allowed such boldfaced betrayal to go unpunished? Would you not have sought revenge? How can you judge us when we were the ones wronged?”

  “You demonstrated complete misuse of your powers,” Magda said gruffly. “Granted, your years may still be tender, and in many ways the three of you still inexperienced with many spells, but you are not naive to our laws. What you did changes the face of the human race. The monstrosities you created will not only kill and destroy other humans, they will breed and mutate, producing subspecies, and their numbers will become endless. Their nightmare will never end. You have executed your revenge, but these creatures will never know peace. They will never have the opportunity to make amends. You chose to be judge, jury and executioner, all of which you had no right. Punishment is due for this atrocity. And the punishment must match the crime.”

  Magda glanced at Bayonne, whose eyes brimmed with tears, then at Palmae, who sat ramrod straight, eyes wide with shock. “Are we in agreement here, sisters?” she asked them.

  Both gave almost imperceptible nods.

  “Very well,” Magda said. “So shall it be.” She held the staff of judgment outright, its tip poised over the stone table.

  Suddenly a sensation caught her attention, and Magda cocked her head slightly to one side to listen intently. She heard water dribbling from somewhere within the cave, the ragged, anxious breathing from the triplets and the other two Elders, but little more. Despite that, she felt certain…no…knew that someone was listening to their conversation from the mouth of the cave.

  Trusting her instincts, Magda felt that someone was Tenebrus Cray, one of the most self-serving, power-hungry sorcerers she had ever known. Magda thought about storming out to confront him, then considered a better idea.

  *

  They might have gotten away with it, but there’d been too much blood. The entire city raged over the incident. It hadn’t taken long for the Elders to find out. Stupid girls.

  Gnawing on that thought, and the piece of clove he had stuck in his mouth earlier, Tenebrus Cray squatted near the entrance of the cave. He leaned in as close as he dared to the opening so as not to miss one word spoken by the women.

  The witches had gathered secretly in the stone belly of a hillside, far from prying eyes in Marseilles. He knew their location because he had spotted Magda, Bayonne and Palmae clomping out of town on horseback, each wrapped in their signature, floor-length capes—black, purple and red, respectively.

  The three were master witches and all but recluses. They lived in a hovel away from the bustle of the city. Tenebrus had only seen them come out to work in their herb garden. To watch them head out of town was a novelty. To have them retreat so hastily, and on horseback, was unheard of.

  Tenebrus knew that Magda had the power of teleportation. Why have an animal bear one’s weight when all one had to do was wave a hand, cast a spell and the three would have immediately teleported to their destination?

  Wherever they were going, whatever they intended to do, had to be significant. And Tenebrus was not about to miss the event.

  *

  Magda pounded the stick of judgment on the stone table once. Then decided to complete the trial in their tribal language, Kaswah, a language rarely spoken and only understood by those within the Circle of Sisters.

  They had been speaking in French until now. Anyone eavesdropping would only hear gibberish, including Tenebrus. Magda considered casting a silencing boundary, then dismissed the thought. The sorcerer would immediately open it.

  She glanced briefly at Bayonne, noticed the tears trickling down her cheeks. Palmae’s expression was one of sheer dread.

  Sitting arrow-back straight and lifting her chin, Magda scowled at the triplets. “Step forward.”

  The triplets complied, instinctively grabbing a hand of the sister nearest her.

  Magda pointed the bloodstone at each young woman, then looked over at the other two Elders and said, “Sisters…”

  With that single word, the three Elders recited in unison.

  “Jealous lovers,

  Vengeance sought.

  Defiling nature,

  Havoc wrought.

  To chastise thee,

  We Elders three,

  Bind ye now for eternity.”

  Palmae and Bayonne slumped back in their chairs but Magda remained straight and focused and let out a sigh.

  “From this day forward, you will be responsible for the creatures you have created,” Magda commanded, pounding the staff of judgment once on the stone table. “No longer will you have the freedom to live life as you please. Your purpose and your powers will be used to contain these monstrosities so they do not multiply and exceed the number of humans on earth. You will establish boundaries, you will set binding spells for control. You will supply them food, but only from natural sources.”

  Esmee dropped her head wearily. Lisette and Julianne began to weep.

  Magda pounded the staff of judgment on the table again to emphasize yet another consequence for their actions. “You and the generations of triplets to follow shall be called Triads from this day forth. The name will serve to identify your wrongdoing. And because you have altered the human race, you and the triplets of future generations are no longer allowed to marry a human nor live intimately with a human.”

  Esmee, Lisette and Julianne gasped in unison, as did Palmae. Bayonne let out a sob.

  “Magda, this punishment is far too harsh,” Palmae said. “We must consult as Elders before casting such a spell upon these young women.”

  “I will hear no more!” Magda shouted. “Did we not agree as a council that the punishment must fit the crime?”

  “Yes,” Bayonne said. “But you cannot call this punishment on your own, Magda. Where is your mercy?”

  “As head of this council, I am allowed to call the punishment, if punishment is agreed upon, as I see fit. And mercy, you ask? The men whose lives these women have altered are changed forever; who gives them mercy?”

  Bayonne lowered her head and Magda immediately turned her attention back to the triplets. “The creatures you have created shall be named accordingly. The one condemned to thirst for blood shall be known as Nosferatu. The one doomed to hunger for flesh yet never be sated shall be known as Loup Garou. And the one you have caused to eternally search for the marrow of bone shall be known as Chenilles. You and future Triads shall protect humans from them, and with the passage of time, as each species interbreeds and mutates, you will assign constables and shepherds to help manage them.”

  “But—” Esmee said.

  “Silence,” Magda demanded. “Along with
those tasks, you and every Triad generation to follow until the end of time will bear the mark of absolutus infinitus on their body as a reminder of this day.” She pointed the bloodstone at Esmee, and the cave echoed with the sound of sizzling flesh.

  Esmee hissed in pain, lowered the coverlet of the sackcloth to examine her left shoulder and saw the mark of 8. The absolutus infinitus, at first red, faded quickly to black.

  Julianne and Lisette huddled closer to Esmee, but it did not stop Magda’s mission. She aimed the bloodstone at Lisette, who let out a shriek of pain and clutched her right hip. Julianne came next, only hers Magda placed on her right ankle. Julianne bore the pain through gritted teeth.

  “Now,” Magda continued, “to minimize the chances of this occurring again, each of you will compile separate tomes. Your tome must include every spell within your knowledge, whether innate or taught. You are to identify each spell, its purpose and the consequences that occur with use of each spell. These tomes will be known as Grimoires. Once they are completed, you will bind each Grimoire in Elder-wood for preservation.”

  Magda waved the bloodstone over the stone table that separated the triplets from the Elders. Three palm-sized mirrors appeared on the table, one in front of each triplet. “Behind the front cover of your Grimoire, you will notch out an indention in the wood. One large enough to securely hold one of these mirrors. Understood?”

  The triplets only stared at her.

  “I said, do you understand?” Magda said loudly.

  Esmee nodded slightly, and Lisette and Julianne quickly imitated her acknowledgment.

  Seemingly satisfied, Magda continued. “You and every generation of Triads to follow must review your Grimoire daily. The first thing you will see upon opening your tome, however, is the mirror. It will reflect the death and destruction that will befall the world should you or any Triad not live up to her duties.”

  Signaling the triplets closer, Magda pointed at the mirrors. “Come closer now and look at what your irresponsibility has set into motion, and why the consequences besetting you are so severe.”